Glen Croy

While social media receive considerable scholarly attention, studies reveal mixed outcomes in relation to its influence on tourists’ destination choices. There is nonetheless a persistent perception that social media has a fundamental influence on destination choice. However, those studies that do find a social media influence are in contexts where tourists are predisposed to be influenced (the contexts were selected due to social media presence or influence). These studies also have limitations in terms of social media types, tourists and destinations. This research responds to the challenges and explores social media influence across diverse destination choice contexts. Through face-to-face interviews conducted with 39 Australian tourist decision-makers, the findings reveal that social media influence is only apparent when specific context-conditions are co-present. Instead, most destination choice contexts are likely to result in low levels of social media influence. The findings advance theory by identifying three contextual dimensions for social media influence: level of social media engagement; destination novelty or familiarity; and complexity of the planning decision. This research importantly demonstrates the need to illuminate context when conceptualising social media influence on tourists’ destination choices. Practically, destinations should utilise social media to demonstrate ease of visit planning.

Purpose: Aligned with the United Nation’s Principles of Responsible Management Education, business schools are expected to incorporate sustainability education in their curriculum with an implicit assumption that graduates practice these values beyond university. This paper aims to challenge this assumption by investigating whether and how students’ sustainability values and attitudes are developed in business schools through identity theory. Design/methodology/approach: The authors used a two-stage parallel mixed methods design in this study. Stage 1 used a quantitative, two-wave longitudinal survey, assessing students’ sustainability attitudes before and after completing a sustainability-focused course in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Stage 2 used qualitative, semistructured in-depth interviews to examine graduates’ sustainability values while at university, during their transition to employment, and in the early stages of graduate employment. Findings: The survey results show that sustainability education may not change students’ sustainability attitudes. The findings from the interviews suggest that students’ identity as “a sustainable person” is shaped more by individuals (family values, schooling, social norms and individual financial conditions) and workplace conditions (culture and coworkers) than by business school education. Research limitations/implications: Contrary to existing studies that promote sustainability education for developing change agents (Hesselbarth and Schaltegger, 2014; Seatter and Ceulemans, 2017), the authors found no significant change, which they explained as being due to isolated sustainability courses and the wider university context suppressing sustainability identities and opportunities. Instead, the isolated sustainability courses in business schools might demonstrate and emphasize only the dominant identity, causing a barrier to activating sustainable graduates. Contrastingly, the authors discovered that workplaces fostered sustainability-related identities through work expectations, workplace culture and substantial actions and impact communication. Practical implications: Practically, for universities, the authors propose that there is a need to combine education for sustainability pedagogical approaches with an understanding of self-identity evolution. Appreciating that university has a diverse range of students with multiple expectations, there is ample opportunity for purposeful efforts to support sustainability outcomes for everyone through curriculum and pedagogy innovation (Mason et al., 2024). All the same, this needs to be implemented at-scale, regularly and in-depth. The authors anticipate that embedding this sustainability-related self-identity earlier will ease and accelerate the potential sustainability impacts in workplaces upon graduation. Originality/value: By combining attitude-behavior and identity theories, the authors propose that business schools should substantively craft transformative sustainability environments enabling students’ identity development to become change agents for better business.

Purpose: Using a soft-hard continuum of drivers and barriers, this research seeks to explain wood companies' adoption of circular economy (CE) practices.Design/methodology/approach: Multiple interviews, complemented by secondary documents and site observations were used to investigate three wood-based companies that have adopted CE practices. The 10R framework and soft-hard continuum are used to guide data analysis.Findings: The adoption of 10R practices were explained by soft-factor incentives of leaders' values and vision and openness for innovation, all within a regulatory void, and eventually overcome hard-factor barriers of process development, supply chain capability and customer behaviours at product end-of-life.Practical implications: Crucial for CE model adoption are leaders' positive attitudes, subsequently grown across the companies. The 10Rs are a prompt for CE practice adoption to capture and retain value and generate revenue. Collaboration across the supply chain, including customers and other value capture companies (e.g. repurposing companies), is essential to maximise value retention. Government should play an increased soft-factor incentive regulatory role and support CE practices to overcome hard-factor barriers.Originality/value: This study contributes an explanation of CE adoption within a relatively unsupported context. Despite the regulatory void, CE practice adoption was driven by leader values. To achieve their vision and overcome the numerous barriers, suppliers and customers required a large investment in education. Indeed, customer behaviour, previously thought to be an incentive for CE adoption, is also identified as a barrier.

Hotels have implemented substantial sustainability initiatives. However, these efforts might be compromised during a crisis. How did sustainability in hotels fare during the COVID pandemic? To investigate, we reviewed national and regional hotel associations’ publicly available stakeholder communications during the COVID crisis. We collected data over four time periods to identify foci and changes. From website content analysis, viewed through a critical sustainability lens, six communication themes emerged. These were (1) operational procedures and technology; (2) staffing; (3) financial support; (4) health and hygiene; (5) marketing; and (6) community network building. Our findings revealed that hotel associations’ public communications were dominated by economic aspects, indicating a demotion of sociocultural and environmental elements of triple bottom line (TBL) considerations. That is, sustainability became largely silenced during the crisis, thus raising questions as to the centrality and meaningfulness of the previous sustainability efforts. The research contributes an in-depth insight that the hotel sector prioritizes economic elements during a crisis, which is problematic if a crisis is long-term and for any recovery efforts. We recommend centralizing sustainability in communications to sensitize and signal attention to strategic core needs.